Distorted Humor is one of three stallions with runners as both a grandsire and a damsire.
While there won’t be a Triple Crown winner in 2025 with Sovereignty skipping the Preakness Stakes (G1), Kentucky Derby (G1) viewers will recognize three horses who also ran in the Derby with Kentucky Derby runner up Journalism joined by Sandman (7th) and American Promise (16th) entered here.
Overall, four horses will be doing the two-week turn around in the Preakness with Goal Orientated stepping up to the stakes level for the first time after winning an Allowance Optional Claiming race on the Derby undercard.
As I did for the Derby, I dug into the stats on each horse in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes to learn more about the bloodstock side of the entries as we prepare for the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Odds Of Making The Preakness
The odds of running in the Preakness are already lower than the Kentucky Derby with a smaller field limit, but this year the nine entries in the race make the odds even lower. The Kentucky Derby saw .097% of the 18,491 foals born in North America in 2022 run in it. The Preakness has 10 less North American-breds in it (one of the runners was born in England), just .054% of that year’s foal crop.
If there are no Preakness scratches, .13% of the 2022 North American foal crop will have run in the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
States Bred
Kentucky produces the most foals every year (7,754 foals in 2022) and that’s directly reflected in the entries for the Preakness. All but two of the nine runners were bred in Kentucky and six of the Preakness runners also made their last start in the state.
River Thames is one of 1,347 foals who were born in New York in 2022 as the only North American-bred runner not born in Kentucky. Heart of Honor is the lone foreign runner in this race, being born in England, but he is by a Kentucky stallion in Lane’s End’s Honor A.P.
Birthdays
Just like the Kentucky Derby, February leads the way for Preakness birthdays with Clever Again the oldest in the field with a February 2 birthday. He’s joined by Journalism (February 6), Gosger (February 18), and Sandman (February 27) as runners born that month.
Pay Billy is the only March birthday and nearly missed out on that month with a March 29 birthday – he was born four days before River Thames, who was born on April 2. Heart of Honor was born on the other end of that month with a foaling date of April 20 – two days before American Promise on May 1. Goal Oriented will be celebrating his own birthday two days before the Preakness with the youngest horse in the field born on May 15.
Sales
The Kentucky Derby had plenty of homebred runners who never went through the ring, but that isn’t the case in the Preakness.
Only the Harvey Clarke-bred Gosger never went through the sales ring and still runs solely for his breeder. There are a few horses whose breeders sold them and did stay in the racing ownership, however. Journalism’s breeder Don Alberto is one of his racing owners and Coolmore bred Clever Again and co-own him with Winchell Thoroughbreds. That means one-third of the field has their breeders at least partly involved in their racing careers.
Heart Of Honor went through the ring the most of any horse, selling for 35,000gns ($44,299) at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale then being pinhooked in the Goffs Ireland Orby Sale for €42,000 ($44,491). His final time through the ring came last year when he brought €160,000 ($171,341) at the Arqana May Breeze Up Sale. That sale has already produced a classic winner in 2025 thanks to 2000 Guineas (G1) winner Ruling Court – who shares a sire with American Promise.
American Promise is one of five Preakness runners to go through the ring only as yearlings. He is also the second highest priced of the group at $750,000 and the highest bought at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The most expensive of the yearlings overall is $825,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga graduate Journalism while the least expensive is the $38,000 Fasig-Tipton October graduate Pay Billy. The yearlings sold for an average of $397,499 and median of $425,000.
Santa Anita Derby (G1) winner JOURNALISM is a graduate of The Saratoga Sale!@EclipseTBP purchased the future G1W/MGSW Curlin colt for $825,000 from the consignment of @DenaliStud, agent.
Fun Fact 👉 Journalism is a “second generation” Saratoga Sale graduate! His dam Mopotism… pic.twitter.com/GtvadvoJDL
— Fasig-Tipton (@FasigTiptonCo) April 7, 2025
Three runners went through the ring as 2-year-olds with two proving to be good pinhooks. Heart of Honor saw the price increase shown above while Pay Billy went from $38,000 in October of his yearling year to $60,000 in April as a 2-year-old. Sandman leads all horses who went through the ring at any age with a $1.2 million price tag as a 2-year-old.
Breeders & Consignors
No breeder has more than one runner in this race and the same is true for consignors, though a few breeders both bred and consigned their runner. Candy Meadows was the breeder and sellers of American Promise and consignor Runnymede co-bred Goal Oriented with CWC Investments.
Sires
There is a mix of young and established stallion in this field with no stallion having more than one runner as a sire.
Honor A.P. is the youngest of the group with Heart of Honor conceived in his first season at stud when he was four. The late Improbable was the second youngest at five while Justify rounds out the three youngest at six. On the other end of the group, Tapit was 20 when Sandman was conceived in 2021 and Curlin was 17.
The average age of the sires at conception was just a tick under 10 years old and the dams come in a bit younger at 8.67 years old.
Just like he was in the Kentucky Derby, Tapit is the king of the pedigrees here as the sire of Sandman and damsire of Gosger and American Promise. That gives the stallion a third of the field. He is the only stallion who has entries both as a sire and broodmare sire here.
Distorted Humor, Scat Daddy and Uncle Mo are both the grandsire and damsire of runners in this field. Distorted Humor sired River Thames’ sire Maclean’s Music and Sandman’s dam Distorted Music. Scat Daddy is the grandsire of American Promise and damsire of Heart of Honor. Uncle Mo rounds out the three as the damsire of Gosger and damsire of Journalism.
None of the sires of damsires of any winner from 2020 on have runners in that role. Though Smart Strike was the damsire of last year’s winner Seize The Grey and could repeat on the other side as the grandsire of Journalism.
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